Telephones, while convenient, require the user to use one hand to hold the telephone in proximity to ear and mouth in order to use the telephone. In addition, when the user wishes to use a cell phone control such as the alphanumeric keypad, the user must take the cell phone from their ear and transfer it to a location in which they can see the keypad and push buttons as needed. In addition to inconvenience and distraction from contraindicated activities such as driving, this is a two handed process. These problems are not restricted to telephones as a growing number of types of devices offer users audio input and output data. Personal computers and personal digital assistants, as two examples, offer increasingly efficient speech recognition. Digital and tape recorders, which do not offer voice recognition, are also examples of the types of devices which may increasingly be voice activated and may even offer preprogrammed voice output.
The requirement of holding a device such as a cell telephone to the ear in turn causes various other problems, safe operation of motor vehicles being one major example of such issues, tiredness by the user's arm being a less important type of problem. For these reasons and others, vendors and inventors are offering a range of solutions to the problem of “hands free” cell phone operation.
One attempt to solve this problem is the “hands free cell phone” or speaker phone in which the volume of the audio output and the sensitivity of the audio input are dramatically increased. The user places the cell phone or other device in a special holder or merely places it on seat or dashboard and speaks loudly. Such systems have numerous disadvantages: audio feedback, ambient interference and poor sound quality, among others. Lack of privacy is increasingly an issue as well, since both sides of the conversation are clearly audible to anyone nearby.
One more promising route for improvement is the use of the headset. By wearing earphones and a microphone, a user can escape the need to continuously hold the cellular telephone or other audio input/output device. Unfortunately, headset cords connecting the headset to the base device can entangle the user's hands, arms, or whatever they may be using, such as a computer keyboard or steering wheel, thus posing a threat on their own. The solution to this problem is the wireless headset, in which the headset device and base device communicate by means of RF transmissions.
Wireless headsets offer a potentially life saving hands free mode of operation for motor vehicles and other activities which require continuous active use of two hands. In addition, wireless headsets offer enormous convenience to the office worker. The user wears the wireless headset with microphone and speakers, leaves the base unit safely tucked away, and is in no danger of having one or more hands entangled in a cord or used to control the base device. This life saving ability is of increasing importance as the number of cell telephones on the road proliferates and drivers increasingly ignore safety (and in some jurisdictions the law) in order to use their telephone, computer, recorder or other device. Other situations than driving may also show the life saving features of the present invention: skiing, bicycling, operation of industrial machinery, printing presses, civil engineering equipment, operation of typewriters and word processors and the full range off office equipment.
Various wireless headsets schemes have been proposed. In general, the problem with most headsets is size, bulk, and lack of ease of use. One possible method of shrinking the headset is to minimize the size of controls which must be finger operated.
US Patent Application Publication 2002/0141571 published Oct. 3, 2002 in the name of Larsen et al for HEADSET is one such item: a headset with voice control of transmission and reception amplification. However, this is intended to prevent reception of background noise when the user is not speaking, and to prevent painfully high volumes in the user's ear. It is not related to answering the telephone by voice control.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,459,911 granted Oct. 1, 2002 to Hijii for PORTABLE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT AND CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR teaches the use of voice recognition to originate a telephone call from a cell phone. However, this device actually teaches the use of a push button to answer the telephone, rather than voice activation or voice recognition to provide an off-hook condition. It also uses a wired microphone rather than a wireless headset.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,222 issued Feb. 19, 2002 to Hafiz for VOICE ACTIVATED MOBILE TELEPHONE CALL ANSWERER teaches control of a cell phone without a headset by means of voice recognition of voice spectrum characteristics. Numerous voice recognition and speaker phone patents teach away from the use of a wireless headset by arguing the benefits of voice recognition instead. Another example of this U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,574 issued Feb. 2, 1999 to Eryilmaz for VOICE ACTIVITY DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHOD teaches a method for voice activation in a speaker phone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,608,794 issued Mar. 4, 1997 to Larson for TELEPHONE HEADSET IN-USE INDICATOR simply indicates the off-hook status of a headset, so that those seeing the user speaking will know that the user is talking to someone on the telephone.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,280,524 issued Jan. 18, 1994 to Norris for BONE CONDUCTION EAR MICROPHONE AND METHOD teaches a wired microphone using bone conduction and voice recognition for control of microprocessor systems. It is wired, and uses voice recognition of commands, not voice activation for answering a telephone.
The disadvantage of voice recognition is the complexity and the dubious accuracy of the method. Complexity requires larger CPU's to handle the load, while lack of accuracy involves offering some manual backup.
It would be advantageous to provide a headset for use with a telephone, which headset offered the ability to voice activate in order to answer the telephone, yet avoided the complexity of voice recognition, and thus allowed a “buttonless” headset of diminished size, weight, cost and complexity.